In the mid-1970s Bruce played Seton Hall and Princeton too. Check out the set lists.

The College Avenue Gym held 2,600 for Rutgers University basketball games, but on Oct. 12, 1976, there was no telling how many students packed the Depression-era edifice known as “The Barn.”

As fun as it was watching the hoops team steamroll opponents on its way to a Final Four the previous winter, this was different. This was a favorite son playing his backyard one last time before superstardom took over, and everybody knew it.

“The anticipation, it was palpable,” said John Wooding, then a photographer for The Daily Targum and later an associate athletic director at Rutgers.

It’s hard to imagine now: Bruce Springsteen, a year after “Born to Run” exploded into the public consciousness, bringing the E Street Band before 3,000 people in a creaky college gym that reeked of chlorine (the building housed an adjacent swimming pool).

“That was a great time for music at Rutgers,” Wooding said. “Billy Joel played there. Meat Loaf played the Barn right after ‘Bat Out of Hell' came out. Boston played the Barn and then went to Madison Square Garden. That doesn’t happen anymore.”

Rutgers wasn’t alone. On Dec. 11, 1975 -- just six weeks after Bruce appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek -- his band played 3,000-seat Walsh Gym at Seton Hall. That night they performed 21 songs, including "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Gov. Chris Christie, a noted fanatic, claims that as his first glimpse of the Boss.

In October 1974, with two albums under his belt, Springsteen played 13 songs at Princeton University’s Alexander Hall -- a 900-seat, Romanesque auditorium that opened in 1894. It must have been like catching The Beatles at Liverpool’s Cavern Club.

The poster commemorating Bruce's appearance at the Barn, which sold for $1 at the time, is now quite valuable.(Photo: Courtesy of John Wooding)

The Boss previously had entertained Rutgers crowds less formally at The Ledge (later the Student Activities Center), but his Barn booking was the work of then-student Bruce Moran, who went on to become president of Live Nation New York.

“They were going to announce on WRSU where they were going to sell the tickets, because they didn’t want people camping out overnight,” recalled Wooding, who was a junior at the time. “They actually did it on a weekend so it wouldn’t interfere with classes. As soon as they heard (of the site), people were sprinting.”

It was worth the effort.

“The show was unbelievable,” Wooding said. “It opened up with 'Night,' which was one of the unsung gems from Born to Run. Clarence (Clemons) comes out wailing on the sax. It set the tone for the whole evening.”

Wooding, who stood close to the stage as he shot the concert for The Targum, said Springsteen talked quite a bit in between songs.

“Bruce told great stories,” he said. “He told the story of his poor relationship with his father, a theme that ran throughout much of his writing in that time frame. It had to have been around ‘Growin’ Up’ (song No. 9 of 16) when I swear to this day he turned and looked right at me and said, ‘Man, I’m tired.’”

No fatigue shows in Wooding’s iconic shots from that night. One wound up in the “Darkness” box set. Another landed on a commemorative poster produced by the students who organized the show. The posters sold for $1 and as Wooding recalls, they didn’t gain much traction at the time.

“I saw recently that an auction house sold one for $750,” he said. “I still have one.”